Unbegaun

[John Dingley]

Unbegaun, Boris
Russian Surnames
1972

pp. 172-3

... In Old Russian all adjectives ended in -oj or -ej. In modern
Russian the -oj ending was preserved only when stressed, whereas in
the unstressed position it was replaced by the Church Slavonic -yj.
The -ej ending was never stressed and consequently ceased to exist
in modern Russian, being replaced by the Church Slavonic -ij. It may
be assumed that in some old surnames the ending -oj was preserved
even when it was unstressed and later attracted the stress to fit into
the modern Russian adjectival pattern. This final stress is therefore
a feature which distinguishes the adjectival surname from the
corresponding genuine adjective. Examples are:

Berezhnoj, Borovoj, Deshevoj, Dikoj, Dubovoj, Grushevoj, Medovoj,
Rudoj, Tolstoj, Vjazovoj.

John Dingley

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http://whitnash.arts.yorku.ca/jding.html

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